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Beating the temptations: work hard to play hard

School is back in session, and that’s probably a bittersweet feeling for most of you because the freedom of summer isn’t comparable to the social freedom experienced during the academic year. Summer allows much more time for socializing, while the school year constricts this time immensely. Returning students may still be stuck in “summer mode” and disregard their academic responsibilities to continue their summer social tendencies.

Now that classes have begun, it is important to balance your social life with your responsibilities as a student. A social life is incredibly important, but your academic responsibilities should precede the former.

Obviously, students pay large sums of money to attend this university. Why do we pay such a large amounts of money? Because we are pursuing a certain piece of paper establishing ourselves in the field we are studying. We are not paying thousands of dollars to party at the nearby fraternity house or apartment party.

Some students forget the actual reason they are attending this university and lose grip of their academic responsibilities. Granted, social experiences in college are usually incredibly fun, so it’s easy to lose interest in completing boring schoolwork and studying for exams. But students can complete their academic responsibilities beforehand to open up more time for social activity.

As cliché as it sounds, in college you have to work hard to play hard.

While we as students have to fulfill our academic responsibilities to our greatest potential, be careful to not be fully enveloped by such responsibilities. Having a positive social experience is very important to the success of students in the classroom. Peers can help academic development immensely, by providing positive reinforcement or acting as an extra study tool. If students enjoy themselves in their social environment, more than likely they will produce academic success.

It is important to go out and meet people with similar interests, because the constant worry about schoolwork can be damaging to your overall mood and psyche. If students feel constant stress from schoolwork and find no medium to release such stress, anxiety can develop and be harmful to their physical and mental health. Stress has been proven to physically break down the body as well as the mind, and academic responsibility can be incredibly stressful. Releasing the stress in some way is essential to stay on course.

The most effective way of balancing your schoolwork and social life is to avoid procrastination at all costs. If you finish all of your academic responsibilities in advance, your schedule will be open to whatever you want to fill it with. Not to mention, procrastination causes extreme stress due to last minute completion of an assignment. Procrastination can also decrease the quality of work put forth, which itself causes stress because of unsatisfactory grades.

This advice can be particularly useful for freshmen. This editorial board has been through the ringer academically and has done its fair share of procrastinating. It’s not worth it — the stress gets too immense. Keep your head on straight, keep your priorities in order, and this next academic semester should be a blast.